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Sun setting on a brilliant career

Vic Marks

Looking back: Ricky Ponting, who did not want to dwell on his career too much. Photo: Getty Images

SO ONE of the undroppables has gone. On Friday Ricky Ponting started playing his 168th and last Test match for Australia. And perhaps for the first time there will be thousands of Poms urging him to sign off with a century.

Ponting, 37, equals the record number of Tests played in a baggy green cap alongside Steve Waugh and somehow he departs in a more Australian way than Waugh, who is often held up as the archetypal Aussie. The celebration of Waugh's career seemed to last for a year - from the time he hit the last ball of the day for four to post his century at Sydney against England in January 2003 to his final Test against India a year later. The handkerchieves were out. It was Sydney at its most sentimental.

Ponting's departure in Perth, where it all started 17 years ago, seems more of a no-nonsense affair. There were a few tears, apparently on the eve of the match, but mostly from Ponting's successor, Michael Clarke (a bit of a new Aussie).

Ponting did not want to dwell on his career too much, preferring to talk of the forthcoming match against South Africa, the final Test of an intriguing series that is level at 0-0. ''Over the last couple of weeks the level of my performance hasn't been good enough,'' he said. He wasn't asking for sympathy - why should he? He has had the most brilliant career. Nor was it necessary to hang out the bunting. As far as possible he did not want to detract from the game ahead.

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When and where Sachin Tendulkar will follow suit we do not yet know, though there is no shortage of speculation on the subcontinent. It will not be long. He has that in common with Ponting, but not much else. Tendulkar, 23 years a Test cricketer, has stayed the same throughout as far as we can tell, not so much mysterious as elusive and impenetrable. But we have seen Ponting evolve. He has let us in.

In Ponting's teens Rodney Marsh, then in charge at Australia's academy, was gob-smacked when he kept pulling 145km/h deliveries sent down by the bowling machine in a way that none of his peers could manage. As a young Test cricketer Ponting could be awesome; he could also be a larrikin, not necessarily at his best at the bar, where he was reluctant to decline a drink and incapable of taking a backward step. He learnt, he matured; he was made captain, winning more games for Australia than any other, yet participating in three losing Ashes series.

Against England in 2005 he became a pantomime villain. To anyone who knows anything of cricket and cricketers he could only be a pantomime villain, not the real thing. He is passionate about the game and he was often selfless, as two tiny examples from his brief time with Somerset demonstrate.

First, he arrived in Taunton in 2004, having flown from Australia, three hours before a Twenty20 match. ''I don't suppose you would like to play?''

It was an impertinent question really. A more calculating man would have said ''no'' immediately.

''Why not? I'll give it a go.'' He was almost bound to fail, but he did not care too much about that.

The following year he had promised to turn up at a benefit do for a stalwart, journeyman Somerset player, Michael Burns. The problem was that it transpired that the function was in London and Australia was in Leeds preparing for a Test match. All very inconvenient but, of course, he was there.

He could not hide his emotions. Remember his fury when he was run out at Trent Bridge in 2005. Remember, too, his grace and candour when that series was over - and his determination to make amends in 2006-07.

It was rare that an Australian should keep playing after relinquishing the captaincy but James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, made this observation of Ponting back in the ranks under Clarke: ''My respect for him has actually increased, seeing first-hand how he stepped back to become a total team player, absolutely committed to his captain, unstinting in his work to help other players and single-minded in his view that everything, including his own ambition, must always be second place after whatever was best for the team.''

Before this Australian summer, Ponting said it was ''the thrill of the contest'' that kept him going. He would have continued playing for his country, it seems, if the runs had kept coming. It is harder to understand what keeps Tendulkar going. Maybe it is simply his way of life, maybe it is the scoring of all those runs. Certainly these two have gone about their business in contrasting ways.

Ponting has always wanted to be at the centre of everything: fielding at second slip or short leg, scowling at the batsman, making decisions or offering suggestions.

Tendulkar has usually shied away from all that, letting the others take charge, fielding anonymously on the boundary in the least taxing positions and batting at No. 4 and No. 4 alone - even if both openers are indisposed. Maybe such detachment has contributed to his longevity.

So when Ponting goes we will miss him in the field as well as when he is batting. But Tendulkar's absence will only strike home when we hear the relative silence that heralds the arrival of India's new No. 4.GUARDIAN